11.] 



TATTOOING. 



39 



this is not the case. The men have seldom any ornament of the 



kind, l^ut the women have the hands tattooed in the manner 



represented in the annexed engraving. The pattern, which is in 



blue, and probably produced 



by Indian ink, is apparently 



similar, or very nearly so, in 



all cases ; but the extent of it 



appears to vary according to 



the age of the indi^ddual. 



Thus the children \\Qxe only 



the fiu2;ers ornamented, and ^-" 



the whole design as here 



represented is not completed \\ 



until marriage. On the wrist, 



or just above it, is a Maltese 



cross — a design which would 



seem to have been in vogue 



for a considerable period, as 



it is given in an illustration 



in Beechey's " Narrative of a 



Voyage to the Pacific" in 1827. 



Our time in the islands being limited, we made the most of it 

 by seeing as much as we could of the town and immediate sur- 

 roundings of Napha-kiang, a dense crowd being invariably in close 

 attendance during our peregrinations. One of the most striking 

 features in the environs of the town is the number of tombs that 

 everywhere meet the eye. They are usually built in the sides of 

 the hills, and are of a horse-shoe shape, not unlike those of the 

 Chinese. The hills, indeed, seemed set apart as cemeteries, and, in 

 spite of the high cultivation around, were left untouched by the 

 hand of the husbandman. The ground is dug away perpendicularly 

 on the slope in the shape of a semicircle, and in the vertical face 

 thus formed a small vault is constructed. The perpendicular 

 sides are built up with masonry, and a low wall erected in front. 



TATTOOED HAXD. 



